OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I was a collection unit manager at Viking Collection Services. I managed 22 direct reports
who were required to hit monthly targets. Those targets added up to our required monthly
goal for the client. The client placed new accounts with us monthly and left them with us
for three months. We were required to liquidate a percentage of each batch every month.
We competed with 4 other organizations every month. The other organizations couldn’t
out-liquidate my team on the newest batch, but they beat me every month in the older
batches. This caused many issues for the client; they were frustrated that we only focused
on the current month.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

This organization had about 100 people. I had 22 people in my unit dedicated to the
client we were working for. There was a total of 3 clients, and each client (other than
mine) had 2 units, my unit was just one large unit – and a challenge to manage.
“Creating roles and units yields the benefits of specialization but creates challenges of
coordination and control—how to ensure that diverse efforts mesh. Units tend to focus on
their separate priorities and strike out on their own, as New York's police and fire
departments did on 9/11.” (Bolman & Deal, 2021). I was responsible for going to weekly
management meetings and passing information on to my team. I was also responsible for
maintaining quality assurance in their files and driving the results. The meetings were
often hours long and about things that didn’t need to be discussed. It took a lot of time
away from my unit and left them on their own for a whole day. This was frustrating for
them because they relied on me being available to assist them and provide knowledge
when necessary.

This organization lacked structure. According to Bolman and Deal, “A good strategy
needs to be specific enough to provide direction but elastic enough to adapt to changing

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 circumstances.” (2021, pg. 52). This organization didn’t provide direction, other than run
as fast as you can and get as much money as you can. There was very little in the way of
training, and if you didn’t make it right out of the gate then you were thought to be
someone who could never make it. The organization didn’t suggest that our clients were
the most important thing to us, they instilled in everyone on the floor that money was the
only motivating factor. I was working with this organization in 1999 and after 9/11 when
the Patriot Act went into effect, it changed a lot of what we could and couldn’t do on the
phones. Unfortunately, there was no structure in the organization to adapt to any new
circumstances. The collectors were struggling because they couldn’t use some of their
very effective skip-tracing tools to locate debtors. “Dramatic changes in technology,
information flows, and the business environment have rendered old structures obsolete at
an unprecedented rate, spawning a new interest in organizational design” (Bolman &
Deal, 2021). This organization was eventually rendered obsolete and closed its doors
officially in 2013.

3) Recommend how you would use the structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

If the organization used more of a team structure, it could have weathered more storms.
The units were divided up but there was no team effort to complete the goal of meeting
the clients’ requirements. It was very cutthroat, and people felt the tension on the floor. I
also believe one of the biggest reasons for the failure of my particular client is my team
was too big. According to Bolman and Deal, “A high percentage of employees' and
managers' time is spent in meetings and working groups of three to twelve people.”
(2021, pg. 101) A team of 22 people was a challenge because a lot of my time was
focused on human issues, and I wasn’t able to devote as much time to each individual as
they needed. There would often be a line at my desk for assistance, and I was like the
DMV – “Next!” I was constantly attempting to put out fires and unable to take a broader
view of the unit as a whole to determine what was going wrong with whom.

The organization should have taken more of a baseball approach with the teams. “In
baseball, as in cricket and other bat‐and‐ball games, a loosely integrated confederacy
makes a team. Individual efforts are mostly autonomous, seldom involving more than two
or three players at a time. Significant distances, particularly on defense, separate players.
Loose connections reduce the need for synchronization among the various positions.”
(Bolman & Deal, 2021) Each collector’s role was mostly autonomous and seldom
involved other collectors, sometimes they would ask for a second voice but that was
usually mine. They didn’t trust other collectors to back them up. I was spread too thin.
A baseball team cannot rely on a manager to make every play for them. A baseball team
needs to work together and trust each other to make the right decisions when necessary.

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 4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

After learning more about structure I would have united and rallied the unit into a team
around the goal of hitting the clients' required numbers. “High‐performing teams
translate common purpose into specific, measurable performance goals.” (Bolman &
Deal, 2021). I would have made the members of the team learn to trust each other. I
would have provided the team with ongoing learning instead of just telling them the
numbers and sending them out to figure it out on their own while I was in meetings about
nothing. I would have requested that my team be cut in half because I was unable to
appropriately manage 22 direct reports to a targeted client goal due to time constraints.
“Effective teams typically have a clear purpose, measurable goals, the right mix of
expertise, a common commitment to working relationships, collective accountability, and
manageable size.” (Bolman & Deal, 2021)

Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass